Florida Panthers set to take step back?

[HighLifeMan]

The deprecation of Weegar's abilities continues in an attempt to justify the trade.

Strikes me reading through this thread that by the end of the year, Forsling had become the defenseman that people think Weegar is. I’m not saying I’d take Forsling in a vacuum over Weegar especially if Weegar has a bounce back season but I think Forsling-Ekblad is actually a better top pairing moving forward. Forsling was already generating a lot of chances with Gudas as his main partner and his skating ability should actually help cover for one of the main quibbles I have with Ekblad, that’s he’s not the most mobile top level defenseman out there.

I expect Forsling to be an analytics darling next year in the same way peak Weegar was. He was already crushing it with Gudas and a full time move next to Ekblad and an increase in minutes from 21-22 to 23-24 per night is going to highlight him as a pretty damn impressive defenseman.

What exactly does Weegar need to bounce back from? multiple high end seasons in a row?

 

[BKarchitect]

But the Panthers aren't "adding" Forsling. They're moving Forsling up in the line-up to get him a couple extra minutes per game, and then backfilling his spot with Staal, correct? And at this point, Staal is pretty limited in what he's going to give you IMO.

Sure, true statement. I’m just suggesting the chasm they are filling (or attempting to) isn’t nearly as wide as the perception of it is.

They’ve already got their Weegar replacement in hand. Forsling will also be difficult to “replace” but the narrative of this deal (Florida got bent over!) is shaded heavily by the fact that people “know” Mac Weegar’s name and have this idea of who he is and they don’t know or know very little about Forsling. If you were to replace Weegar with Forsling in the deal, there wouldn’t be half as much outrage in terms of Florida losing too many key assets. But from a team building standpoint it’s a wash for Florida and much more economical long-term.

 

[BKarchitect]

The deprecation of Weegar's abilities continues in an attempt to justify the trade.

What exactly does Weegar need to bounce back from? multiple high end seasons in a row?

Nobody is depreciating his abilities. His play last year had already dropped, especially defensively - well before the poorly timed playoff mistakes. He was still a huge even strength weapon but feel free to look at all the regular season GDT in the Panthers forum and you’ll see the complaints about his defensive attention and concerns about utilizing a big chunk of cap on him moving forward started much earlier than this silly notion that he’s only been critiqued for a couple of mistakes in the playoffs.

So yeah, he could definitely bounce back because he was nowhere near as good of a 200’ defenseman last year as he was in 20-21 - when he was awesome. Tanev could be the ideal partner.

 

[Rcknrollkillnmachine]

I still can't believe they hired Maurice. If they make the play-offs it's out of spite of him.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

Sure, true statement. I’m just suggesting the chasm they are filling (or attempting to) isn’t nearly as wide as the perception of it is.

They’ve already got their Weegar replacement in hand. Forsling will also be difficult to “replace” but the narrative of this deal (Florida got bent over!) is shaded heavily by the fact that people “know” Mac Weegar’s name and have this idea of who he is and they don’t know or know very little about Forsling. If you were to replace Weegar with Forsling in the deal, there wouldn’t be half as much outrage in terms of Florida losing too many key assets. But from a team building standpoint it’s a wash for Florida and much more economical long-term.

In your analogy though - the Panthers need to backfill Forsling's role in the top 4 from last year, and the guy they added to the roster was Marc Staal. That's a pretty significant step back from a "guy who can activate offense" perspective. (Above is predicated on Forsling replacing Weegar's minutes/contributions from last year).

 

[ponder]

I guess their big changes are:
- Huberdeau out, Tkachuk in (nice for the age difference, but it's a small short term downgrade)
- Weegar out, Marc Staal in (massive downgrade)
- Marchment out, Colin White in (large downgrade)
- Giroux out, Nick Cousins in (large downgrade, but Giroux was a rental, and they were great without him)
- Chiarot out, Mahura in (large downgrade, but same rental comment)
- Coach changed from Brunette to Maurice (very tough to judge, this could be an upgrade or a downgrade, though personally I'm not a fan of Maurice and see it as a slight downgrade)

Overall, no doubt, there are some significant downgrades there - the big standouts being the losses of Weegar and Marchment with extremely weak replacements. However, they're still a pretty strong team. Last year they had 122 points, 1st in the league, I don't think they repeat that. But ~105-110 points, solidly in the playoffs and a legit contender, I think so. 3rd in the Atlantic IMO. I'd be shocked if they aren't top 3, in the Atlantic, as Boston got weaker (mainly due to injuries/age), and while Ottawa/Detroit/Buffalo should all improve, can't see them catching Florida.

 

[ole ole]

Not sour at all, just think it's funny some Habs fans are anticipating a top 10ish pick coming their way.

Almost as bad as thinking the Panthers are winning the cup this season.

 

[TheImpatientPanther]

Almost as bad as thinking the Panthers are winning the cup this season.

Yes because Panthers fans are shouting this from the rafters...
We know it won't be the Maple Laffs either.